


Paladins in the Castle

by Pavielpetrovich



Category: Quest for Glory
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29935965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pavielpetrovich/pseuds/Pavielpetrovich
Summary: A hero infiltrates a castle to search for a lost child and confront the monsters that abducted her.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Paladins in the Castle

Paladins in the Castle  
A Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness fanfic  
by Pavielpetrovich

Falcon came to consciousness one sense at a time: The soft, warm mattress under him and the equally soft and warm blanket over him were the first things that he noticed. A second later, he was conscious of a dim light through his left eyelid, as from a candle. On his next breath, he noticed the familiar, pungent odor of the garlic cloves strung in garlands all over the ceiling. Despite vigorously scrubbing his teeth last night, as he did every night, he could still taste the garlic from last night's dinner in his mouth.

“Wake up, Falcon!” called a feminine voice from his left, the same direction as the candlelight.

It was Bella, the innkeeper's wife, waking him as he had requested last night. From the window on his left, no light emerged; it was still an hour before dawn.

Falcon rose from his bed and quickly donned his clothes, boots, and armor; he found his pack and quickly checked its contents before slinging it over his shoulder.

As Falcon left his room, he regarded Bella, a stout but not unattractive lady, her face lined with the cares and sorrows of a woman twice her age. Losing her only child had aged her indeed; her eyes were dark and heavy with lost sleep and tears, and he made a silent prayer to the Essential Rightness of the Universe that her cares and sorrows might soon be alleviated at last.

As they descended the stairs to the dining room, Falcon saw the innkeeper Yuri unlocking the front door, preparing to open his inn for what business could still be found here. Falcon sat at his usual seat near the kitchen door while Bella went into the kitchen itself to prepare his breakfast.

Falcon was not sure that he could eat this morning, so nervous was he about what he was going to attempt this day. He knew that he had to keep his strength and his wits up if he was to survive.

Or maybe he wouldn't survive anyway.

Fortunately, the aroma of the fried beets and sausage and peppers and garlic was sufficient to drive such worries from his mind for the time being, and his stomach growled in anticipation of the meal that Bella was now bringing out of the kitchen, and now laying on the table in front of him.

Within fifteen minutes his plate was empty, and in place of his breakfast he laid two gold coins, each stamped with the image of a crown. For waking him so early and providing this early breakfast, Bella deserved such a generous consideration, and more.

“What are you planning?” she asked.

The question surprised Falcon. Never before had Bella pried so deeply into his comings and goings as he traversed the land of Mordavia, attempting to bring some small light and joy to the land's overwhelming darkness and gloom.

Then again, until last night, Falcon had never asked more of her or Yuri than a soft bed to sleep on and two hearty meals served at their convenience. He had never had to be so prepared for any of the dangers that he had faced over the last two weeks or so. But today...

“I will need every minute of daylight I can get,” Falcon replied. “And with each passing day, I have one minute less. I must act now.”

“You are going to the castle,” Bella did not ask. Falcon looked up to her face, seeing her piercing eyes bright with unshed tears.

 _And hoping to find your daughter there,_ Falcon did not reply. He was as certain that Tanya was there as Bella herself was, though they had never discussed it. The inn's Domovoi, or house-spirit, had told him a few nights ago what had happened to Tanya. At the spirit's insistence Falcon had appropriated a beautiful doll from one of the cabinets lining the walls of this dining room, so that Tanya might take more kindly to his presence when...

Falcon swallowed that thought down as he rose from his chair and walked towards the door.

“I will be back by midnight,” he told Yuri and Bella. _Or I will be dead by then,_ he left unsaid.

As he left the inn, he took a more thorough inventory of his belongings. The doll was still there, as were the twenty bulbs of garlic he had bought yesterday. Stealth was never one of his strengths, and with the inhabitants of Castle Borgov having such a sharp nose for garlic, it probably would have been impossible anyway. By now, after so many days of eating garlic with every meal, he was sure that even his sweat reeked of that vegetable.

The garlic would keep the vampires at bay, and if it came to it, he still had his sword and shield and the Essential Rightness of the Universe at his side. He could only hope that it would be enough to save his life, or Tanya's.

Falcon approached the town square, just inside the town gate. So often he had passed by the boulder in the middle of the square, encircled by green grass and beautiful flowers of every color, and never really stopped to consider how lovely the sight was.

But it was the curved, bare branch of wood, half-buried in the boulder, that caught his attention most of all. The Staff of Erana had been brought back to this town after her battle against the Dark One some fifty or sixty years ago. All that time the Staff had been protecting this little town against the horrors that plagued the rest of the valley, and tonight, with any luck, it would work its deadliest and most life-giving magic yet.

“This I must first do: The sacrifice of Life for one of Love. My destiny is not yet fulfilled; one Life for a Death, and one Death for a Life,” a feminine voice echoed in his head as he laid his hand on the staff.

Though the sky was beginning to lighten to his left, the sun was not properly up yet, and the translucent apparition of a bearded, mail-clad knight could still be seen standing before the boulder, looking toward Falcon and nodding.

A similarly bearded man was walking towards the gate now, though he was true flesh and blood and wearing the distinguished garments of a Burgomeister rather than the armor of a Paladin. As Dmitri Ivanov passed by the ghost of his grandfather, Falcon swore that he could see the living man looking towards the dead man and nodding his head.

And Piotyr was smiling and bowing his head to his grandson in reply, though Falcon did not know whether Dmitri had seen it or not.

Dmitri waited by the gates, key in hand, ready to unlock them the moment the sun crested over the mountains to the southeast.

“You are up early,” Dmitri noted to Falcon.

“I need every minute of daylight today,” Falcon answered. “Suffice it to say that if I am not back by midnight, I will most likely be dead.”

“So be it, Paladin,” Dmitri replied. “In the name of Piotyr Ivanov, rest his soul, you will return alive.”

 _Rest his soul._ Falcon could have told him that his grandfather's soul would never rest while the Darkness lingered here, the Darkness that he had fought so hard to banish, that he continued to fight so hard to banish.

“I have taken up his sword, and his cross,” Falcon said instead. “I will bear them both into the heart of the Darkness itself, as he would.”

It was at that moment that a single ray of sunlight illuminated the bare wooden branch in the middle of the town square. Dmitri turned the key and pulled the gates open. When the gap between the gates was just wide enough for a human man to pass through, Falcon made haste to the graveyard, thinking of some words of wisdom that he had heard long ago:

_And they ask, “What is a Hero?” though the answer's very clear:  
He's the one who faces danger when the darkness hovers near._

In less than five minutes he was in the cemetery, his shadow against the door to the crypt, where of old the Borgov Boyars had been interred. The key was in his hand already, and he unlocked the door.

Down the dark staircase into the crypt he went, past the bas reliefs of knights covering the coffins in the walls, past a statue of the Grim Reaper, towards one bas relief in the wall that bore a small lock and would not budge.

The ghost of old Nikolai had told Falcon of a secret passage between this crypt and the castle, and Falcon was sure that this relief concealed that passage.

He took up the small key that had been hidden inside the Borgov's crest on the floor, and he turned it in the lock.

The relief opened to reveal a dark tunnel, and Falcon spent the next ten minutes traversing deep into the mountains.

At last the tunnel ended with a wooden door, which seemed to be secured by a latch on his side. He pulled the latch and pushed on the door.

It took much more effort than he was expecting, but at last, with a mighty groan, the door slid open, and Falcon ventured forth.

Falcon looked behind him, expecting to see the other side of the door he had just opened. Instead, he saw a bookcase full of books at an odd angle to the wall. He heaved the bookcase back into place, and shivered as he heard the click of the latch.

Then he looked around, and he saw that there was no obvious mechanism to pull the latch from this side of the secret door. He was trapped.

After a brief moment of anxiety over his new predicament, Falcon remembered the rest of what Nikolai's ghost had told him. The passage that he had just used was an escape path for the Borgov family, meaning that there must have been some means to open the bookcase from inside this room.

With that comforting thought, Falcon scoped out the room itself.

A table with three chairs lay in the middle of the room, dusty with disuse. There were two proper doors, one to his left, one straight ahead. Two windows were set high into the wall to his right, through which Falcon saw the rainbow void that was the early-morning sky.

The sun was still low in the sky, and from the angle of the orange rays of sunlight illuminating the wall, Falcon appeared to have spent only an hour or so of precious daylight.

The light drew his attention to a candelabra set into the wall between the doors. The candles flickered futilely in the sunlight, their flame wasted at this bright hour.  
All except the rightmost candle, which was unlit and not properly ensconced. Out of curiosity, Falcon reached up to fix the candle properly in place. As soon as he did so, he heard the familiar click of the latch to his left, and the groan of wood on heavy wood as the bookcase budged an inch inward.

Falcon had found the way back out.

Satisfied with this knowledge, he pushed the bookcase shut again, and he opened each door to see what was on the other side.

The hinges of the doors squeaked mightily as he opened them, and he was reminded again that stealth would not be possible when night fell, and the castles inhabitants awoke from the sleep of death.

Through the left door, he saw a winding staircase; through the right door, another room. He chose to scope out the latter first, in an attempt to familiarize himself with each of the castle's floors in turn.

The lower level of the castle turned out to be extremely simple: four or five rooms in a row, furnished with ancient dining tables and upholstery, covered with what looked like fifty or sixty years' worth of dust.

Falcon could scarcely believe that anyone at all lived here, though the castle's gatekeeper Boris had assured him that at least five people did, and probably more:

“I don't know for sure who all lives in the castle; I don't often see anyone from there. There is the Master, of course, and then there is the strange foreigner. There is also the Master's daughter, I believe, and some rather strange guards. Other than that, I really can't say.”

Guards... Why weren't there any guards here?

Boris had told Falcon that the castle had guards... possibly not quite human, but that they did a good job. Yet if the castle guards did a good job, why were there none on this whole floor?

Then, too, there was the matter of the Master's daughter...

Falcon had met her a few times. She was a very interesting person to talk to, and quite charming too. But somehow each of those meetings... or perhaps it would be more appropriate to call them secret trysts... left him uneasy.

She lived in this castle.  
This castle, where nobody lived but monsters, or so the inn's Domovoi had told him.  
The Elder Rover, Magda, had warned him not to trust Katrina, that there was something very strange about her.  
Yet Falcon's faith in the Essential Rightness of the Universe was as firm as ever, and no other danger or potential danger had escaped his notice.  
If Katrina was some sort of horrific monster or undead, why had his Danger Sense failed to warn him of such?  
Or had it?

He had felt a strange warning tingle just after escaping from that strange cave, alerting him to some danger in the vicinity but not pinpointing its source, even as he carefully crossed that hideous pond of slime and met her for the first time on the other side.

Falcon put those memories aside. He had a job to do here, and neither Katrina nor her mysterious father nor the equally mysterious Foreigner would stop him from doing it.

Find Tanya.  
Convince her to come with him back to the inn.  
Escape from the castle with her.

At the far end of this level of the castle was another winding staircase, but he could hear the flapping of bat wings on the other side. Briefly opening the door, he saw that that hallway was infested with what looked like spiders with bat wings, such as he had fought once in that strange cavern.

He decided to leave well enough alone, and he headed back to the room with the bookcases.

Up the stairs from that first room, Falcon found himself in the largest room he had yet found in this castle: The great hall, no doubt. Several large logs lay burning in the hearth to his right as he entered the room, casting a reddish hue over the table and chairs nearby. As he walked closer to the furniture, he noticed that it appeared to be in much better repair than that of the rooms downstairs. The many statues adorning the chamber appeared to be free of dust and dirt as well.

Clearly the inhabitants of this castle took their ease in this room. He would need to avoid it tonight.

There were three other doors out of this great hall. The largest, opposite the fireplace, appeared to be the main gate into the castle, but it was securely barred.

The other two were opposite the door he came in; one was at floor level, and the other was up a small flight of stairs. He tried the former door first.

The door seemed to lead into some sort of storage room or pantry. There was another door in the opposite wall of the storage room, which led into a bedroom.

A quick glimpse of the bed, and the chest at the foot of the bed, informed Falcon that there was danger here, but nothing of real interest. Falcon again elected discretion as the better part of valor, returning to the great hall and climbing the stairs.

There was another stairwell on the other side of that door, of course, and as he started to ascend the winding stairs, he felt a sense of sorrow and loss. A humanoid apparition was floating down the stairs even as Falcon was climbing up.

Yet there was no real danger here; this ghost was no wraith, fighting for filthy lucre. Falcon proceeded upward, shivering as he and the ghost passed through each other.

Finally, he reached the top of the staircase, and opened yet another door into yet another room.

The sun was high in the sky now, and the rays of light on the floor were as close to the windows as they would ever be today: It was noon.

The furnishings of these upper floors appeared to be in somewhat better repair than those on the bottom floor, but still not as magnificent or as clean as those in the great hall.

Falcon swallowed a mouthful of fear. He had seen no clear signs of life yet in this castle, yet it seemed to him that he was getting closer to his goal.

There were doors in either direction from where he was standing: He chose to go left first.

After interminable minutes of passing through dark hallways and disused rooms, he came to a library of sorts at the far end of this floor of the castle.

A stairwell was leading down from the library, and Falcon heard two voices coming from the bottom of that stairwell. Just as he came within clear earshot of the voices, he could sense that the people to whom they belonged were dangerous.

“Hey, the Master is really something, ain't she?” said one of the voices.

“Yeah,” said another.

“I even like the kid. Shame they keep her all the way on the other side of the castle,” said the first voice.

“Yeah,” repeated the second.

“It's that Adda Bees guy I can't stand. He looks at us like we were food, or something.”

“Ugh, you gots it. That guy gives me the creeps.”

Falcon slowly backed away up the stairs, but his boot scuffed the stone step at the top of the stairwell.

“Hey, I heard something. Did you hear something?” asked the first voice.

“Nah, nobody never comes down here. People wanna get _out_ o' the dungeon, not _into_ it,” answered the second.

“Well, I'll go up the stairs and see what's up.”

“The Master's not gonna like it when I tell her you left your post.”

“You wouldn't dare!”

“Would too! Dungeons are always guarded, and you...”

Falcon started running before he could hear the end of their bickering, hoping that their voices were loud enough to drown out the sounds of his footfalls as he left the library and ran back the way he had come, through dark hall and dusty chamber.

He found a bench and sat down roughly, catching his breath and bringing his thoughts together. There was no sound to be heard in this room except for the rapid beating of his own heart. He took in a deep breath and let it out again slowly.

The mannerisms of those two guards didn't seem particularly human; in that regard, Falcon was inclined to agree with Boris's assessment of them. Falcon hadn't caught even a glimpse of them, as Boris had, but their manner of speech reminded him of Crusher, a half-ogre who had served as bouncer for the tavern in Spielburg. Perhaps, Falcon mused, the guards might also be half-ogres.

What they had said, though, needed some thought.

Both of them had referred to the Master as “she.”  
They had also referred to a “kid” who was kept on the other side of the castle.  
And that “Adda Bees guy” that they had talked about... Their description of his behavior perfectly matched Boris's description of the Foreigner's habit of “staring at a person and licking his lips.”

If Boris's “Foreigner” and the guards' “Adda Bees guy” were one and the same...  
Presumably, Boris's “Master” was also the guards' “Master,” and a woman.  
That left Falcon with one conclusion: “The Master's daughter,” as Boris knew her, and “the kid,” as the guards knew her, were one and the same.  
Katrina might be young, but she was certainly no kid. Something was very wrong about her indeed... and how could he not have known that the moment he had met her?  
Suddenly Falcon rose to his feet and started down the hallway in the direction opposite the library and the guards, hoping that he could find wherever “the kid” was kept before sunset.

Another stairwell marked the end of the hall, leading up to what looked like a child's bedroom (from what Falcon could see of it through the keyhole). A large, ape-like creature was standing at attention near the door.

And through the window on the opposite wall of the bedroom, Falcon saw that the sun was just setting now.

He opened the door only to see it slam in his face as the beast on the other side forced it shut.

“Who is it, Toby?” a high-pitched voice asked.

Falcon heard unintelligible grumbling from the other side of the door.

“It's not polite to slam the door in people's faces, is it, Toby?” the childish voice asked. “Ask the stranger what he wants!”

The beast opened the door with a growl, allowing Falcon to see more of the bedroom. But he was standing firmly on the threshold in a manner that indicated that Falcon was not welcome to enter.

Behind the beast, Falcon saw an ornate bed and a pale young girl sitting in it.

His senses were warning him that there was something very wrong in this room, but nothing immediately dangerous. The beast standing in the doorway was not overtly hostile to him; he was simply protective of the child.

The aura of great wrong seemed to focus on the child: A chill emanated from her, filling the paladin with sorrow, and a touch of fear.

“Um... good evening, miss,” the paladin greeted her. “My name is Falcon.”

“Hello, there,” said the girl. “My name is Tanya, and this is Toby.” The beast growled as she gestured to him. “Do you live in the castle now too?”

“Uh, no,” Falcon hesitated. “No, I am just visiting.”

“Visiting...” Tanya whispered. “Why?”

“Well...” Falcon hesitated. He suspected that blunt honesty wouldn't be enough to convince Tanya to come with him back to town, but the alternatives of lying or refusing to answer were outright dishonorable: “Because... your parents miss you. Everyone in town misses you.”

Toby growled.

“I miss my Mommy and Daddy too,” said Tanya, “but I can't go home again. This is my home now.”

“What happened?”

“Toby used to visit me at the inn. Mommy and Daddy would not like it if they saw Toby. They wouldn't let me play with him. So I didn't tell them about him. One day, Toby brought be a beautiful doll. I never had a real doll before. I named her Vana. When Mommy saw Vana she got real mad. She tried to make me tell about Toby. My Mommy and Daddy yelled at me. They scared me. They took Vana away and wouldn't let me see her ever again. I didn't want them to do that to Toby. So I ran away with him. Aunt Trina says Mommy and Daddy won't like me now. They will be scared of me, like they were scared of Vana.” The child's voice was only a sad whisper now. “I don't want Mommy and Daddy scared of me. I'll never go back again.”

The creature bowed his head and let out a low, sad groan.

“I know, Toby,” she said to him. Then she turned back to Falcon. “You should go now. I don't want to talk about bad things.”

“You mentioned an 'Aunt Trina,'" Falcon persisted. "Could you tell me more about her?”

“Aunt Trina is says she will be my friend and take care of me. I like her. She gives me nice things. She says I'll be her little girl forever and ever and ever.”

Toby growled.

“Toby says Aunt Trina is his master. She sent Toby to be my friend so I would never have to be afraid of the night again.”

Falcon's stomach went cold at Tanya's words.  
Aunt Trina... no, Katrina... was Toby's Master. And Boris' Master. And the guards' Master.  
Tanya was the Master's “daughter.”  
Katrina was not the Master's daughter, but the Master herself.  
Falcon barely heard Tanya as she continued to talk about the Master. “I love dancing with her in the Great Hall and playing with Cuddles, her pet hound.”

“Dancing?”

“Sometimes Aunt Trina and I dance all over the room. We dance on top of the statues and everything. It's like flying around and around. But we haven't danced much since the Dark Man came here.”

“The Dark Man?” Falcon was immediately reminded of the Foreigner.

“I don't like the Dark Man. I wish Aunt Trina never brought him here. He's mean. I stick out my tongue at him all the time.”

Toby growled in agreement.

“Toby doesn't like the Dark Man either. Toby says the Dark Man can't be trusted. You should stay away from him.”

“Has Aunt Trina ever referred to him by name?”

Falcon was surprised to hear Toby respond first with an angry growl.

“Toby says his name is Ad Avis.”

“Ad Avis?” Falcon exclaimed. A wizard who had served the Dark Master for seventy years, learning enough dark magic to bend the minds of men to his own will, Ad Avis had attempted to unleash a great and terrible power that would make him the Master. Falcon had just barely interrupted the magical ritual before... “He died months ago!”

“He came here months ago,” Tanya answered. “He's a Bad Thing; Bad Things don't die.”

“A Bad Thing?”

Toby growled.

“You should go now. I don't want to talk about Bad Things.”

For a moment, Falcon considered acquiescing to their demand. In all the time that he had been in Mordavia, it had never occurred to him that the young woman who had first met him when he escaped from that cave... who had been so friendly to him every time they met... would be his worst enemy. And the Essential Rightness of the Universe had not warned him of the true danger that she posed to him.

And she was none other than the Dark Master to whom Ad Avis had been apprenticed once in life, and now again in undeath.

“Before I go, I have something for you,” Falcon said, taking the doll out of his bag.

“What is that? Toby, let him in.”

Toby reluctantly stepped aside with a glare.

“Toby! He has our dolly!” Tanya exclaimed.

She jumped off of her bed and seized the doll from Falcon, holding it in a tight embrace. Falcon could not help recoiling in horror as he clearly saw the deathly pallor of her skin and the sharp canines protruding from her mouth, and that the "bed" that she had been sitting in was exactly the size and shape of a coffin. Tanya was indeed a vampire.

“Oh, Vana! I thought I'd lost you!" the vampire cried. "Look, Toby! It's Vana!”

Toby's eyes shifted from the child hugging her doll to the man who had given it to her, and nodded or bowed his head slightly. Falcon bowed back.

“Tanya...” the paladin hesitated as he rose from his bow. “Do you... remember the Staff of Erana in town?”

“I like the Staff," answered Tanya. "It always made such pretty flowers in town. What about it?”

“Well..." Falcon considered for a few seconds how to explain the staff's power. "It has a powerful spell in it that could turn you back into a real little girl again.”

“It can make me all better and I won't be a Bad Thing anymore?” Tanya asked enthusiastically.

“Yes.”

“Oh, Toby!" the child exclaimed. "I can see Mommy and Daddy again!” She threw herself at Toby in a joyful hug, and the wrapped his massive arms around her.

After a few seconds, though, the creature looked over Tanya's shoulder at Falcon and grunted suspiciously.

“Toby asks what else the staff will do,” Tanya explained as she withdrew from the hug.

“Well... the spell exchanges the life of one person for that of someone they love. It calls for a sacrifice.”

Toby nodded and growled in approval.

“Toby says he understands," Tanya translated. "He says you should take us to the staff now, so I can be with my Mommy and Daddy again.”

“Of course,” said Falcon, “but first we have to get out of this castle. Do you know much about the basement?”

“Not really. I spend most nights here in my bedroom. As I said, I don't spend much time in the Great Hall anymore." answered Tanya. "We don't really go anywhere else; Aunt Trina says there are Bad Things there. I'm not afraid of Bad Things anymore, but she still says I should stay away from them.”

“Well, just downstairs from the Great Hall is a room with a table, three chairs, and some bookcases covering one of the walls. There's also a candelabra on the wall with a candle not quite in place. That's a fake candle, and it opens a secret passage out of the castle.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Tanya asked.

Toby growled.

“Oh, I get it. We might have to get to that room on our own. But why?” Tanya asked.

“Aunt Trina and the Dark Man don't know that I'm here,” Falcon said, “and the longer it takes them to find out that I am, the better. You could get past them more easily than I could, I would guess.”

Toby growled doubtfully, and at that moment, Falcon sensed grave danger from the bottom of the stairwell outside of Tanya's bedroom, slowly ascending the stairs.

Falcon looked out the window and saw the courtyard below. It was far to climb or to fall, but as he took out his rope and grapnel and attached them to the window, he knew he would survive the ordeal one way or another. “Tanya,” he said, “if Aunt Trina or the Dark Man comes in, unhook this grapnel and toss it out the window. I can take the fall if I have to.”

“Toby, guard the door,” Tanya ordered as Falcon threw the rope out the window and started to climb down.

After interminable minutes of climbing, the rope and grapnel finally gave way when Falcon was about two meters off of the ground. He had ample strength to spare for healing the wounds of his fall, and so he called upon the Essential Rightness of the Universe to do so. Fully healed but a bit more tired, he looked up at the two large bats flying out of the window above him. It was a wonder, he thought, that Tanya and Toby had been able to hold them off for so long... but it wouldn't be long now before his old nemesis and his Dark Master found him.

* * *

“Where is he?” Aunt Trina demanded of Toby. Tanya had never seen her so angry, even at the worst of the Dark Man's provocations. “I know the smell of his blood as well as any man's! I know he is in here, or was just now!”

Tanya hurried to the window and put her hand on the grapnel, ready to unhook it and toss it out the window the moment Aunt Trina stepped over the threshold. Aunt Trina and Falcon were both so nice to her... Why couldn't they be friends with each other?

“Why did you let him...?” Aunt Trina continued to interrogate Toby until she saw Tanya standing at the window, one hand on the sill, the other clutching her doll.

“I see...” Aunt Trina interrupted herself, looking at the doll. It almost seemed like she was stunned by the sight, as it took her a minute to say more. “He brought Vana back to you to make you think he was your friend.” As she stepped into Tanya's bedroom, Toby growled a defiant yes at her. _Yes, he is our friend._

Tanya released the grapnel and tossed it out the window as Falcon had asked; a soft thud from outside the window informed her that he had still been on the rope at the time.

A man in black robes and a strange red hat materialized out of the air behind Aunt Trina. Tanya recognized the Dark Man's unpleasant visage at once.

“He has learned well from your example, Katrina,” he said with an evil chuckle. “After all, look what you have done to make him think you are his friend.”

“Silence, Ad Avis! Help me find him!” Aunt Trina commanded, transforming into a bat and flying out of the window.

“With pleasure, Master,” the Dark Man replied, transforming and following her.

Toby walked over to the window and grunted as he watched the two bats fly away.

“I know, Toby,” Tanya said. “Aunt Trina is wrong about Falcon. I hope he'll be okay.”

Toby grunted, picked up Tanya, and carried her down the stairs towards the great hall. _Even if Falcon isn't okay, I can still bring you to your parents as he wanted,_ he was saying. _But yes, I hope he is okay too._

* * *

Falcon was glad to be out in the fresh air, where the stench of garlic in his breath could be diffused more quickly than in those dank rooms and halls inside the castle. He quickly found the opposite corner of the castle's keep and looked at the tower from which he had climbed.

The two large bats were still circling the keep in search of the interloper, but Falcon dared not move an inch even as they flew away from him. Even from such a great distance, Falcon could feel the danger from them in his bones, and his hand was shaking as he brought it to the sword at his hip.

_He will face the fiercest foe when another needs his aid.  
He will dare to defy death even though he is afraid.  
He works not just for glory, and he does it not for gain,  
But because he knows that others will be spared a greater pain._

The words of his father by adoption, the Sultan of Shapeir, came back to him, reminding him why he had taken up the sword of the Paladin in the first place.

He bared his blade, willing it to burst into blue-hot flame, its warmth and light rejuvenating him even as it revealed him to the two fiercest foes he had ever faced.

Soon they found him, flew to him, and transformed into the human forms that Falcon recognized so well. Anger and disbelief were clear on Katrina's face, while Ad Avis stood staring at him, dark tongue lapping at dark lips.

“You!” Katrina exclaimed. “How could you?”

Falcon drew a breath, feeling a will other than his own move his lips in response. “Aunt Trina,” his voice replied, “even your most loyal servant sees that you have done a great wrong. He and I will set it right!”

At that moment the front doors of the keep opened, and Toby moved out to stand beside Falcon, laying his monstrous hand on the human's shoulder, staring at his Master and her apprentice with a frown.

_He won't always follow orders, for he dares to question why,  
And unless he likes the reason, he refuses to comply._

Toby's gentle nudges backward made it clear that he wanted Falcon to fall back into the great hall. Falcon slowly backed away from his enemies into the keep, sword at the ready in one hand, a bulb of garlic in the other.

Falcon could scarcely believe that the two vampires had been so easily transfixed, but they made no move to pursue him or Toby into the castle's basement, where the bookcase stood ajar. They quickly stepped into the secret passage before Toby pulled the bookcase shut, and the latch clicked into place.

“Toby! Falcon!” Tanya cried from farther into the tunnel.

“We are not safe yet,” Falcon said, pulling bulb after bulb of garlic out of his bag. “I need to ward this passage against our foes. And Tanya, you need to run. The stench here will soon be unbearable to Bad Things. The tunnel leads to the cemetery, and the town is not far from there.”

Toby growled to Tanya.

“Toby will stay and help you with the garlic,” Tanya said before turning and running.

In a few minutes Toby and Falcon had smashed all of the garlic bulbs and smeared their juice against the walls, floor and roof of the tunnel near the “door.” Soon they too were running down the tunnel after Tanya, and the three of them reached the Borgov crypt together.

Falcon took the stairs up and out of the crypt two at a time before he found the heavy door locked at the top of the stairs, and no keyhole on his side.

“Blast!” he exclaimed. “I can't open the door!”

“Hmm... There's a sign by this statue... it says 'Greet the Reaper,'” Tanya mused from the bottom of the stairs.

With a sudden click, the door at the top of the stairs was opened, and Falcon stepped out; soon Tanya and Toby followed him.

Thankfully there was no more danger in the graveyard or the forest than there usually was at night, and Falcon led Tanya and Toby to the gates of the town.

“We'll have to climb the wall,” Falcon explained, retrieving his rope and grapnel from his bag again. Toby pulled Tanya onto his shoulders and quickly scaled the barrier, while Falcon pulled himself up his rope before taking his grapnel and jumping down the other side of the wall.

* * *

“It feels weird here,” Tanya whispered, standing next to the boulder in which Erana's staff was resting; her body was shaking, causing a tremor in her voice. “Kind of happy... and icky. I'm scared.”

Toby let out a moan of sympathy.

“I know you'll protect me, Toby," Tanya whispered, "but who will protect you?”

Toby put a hand on her shoulder and grunted.

“Okay, Toby; I'll protect you.”

At that moment, a famliar, feminine voice echoed from the staff. “Death and Life are now before me. That for which I am destined awaits me: The Sacrifice of Life for Love.”

Too late Falcon realized that he, Tanya and Toby were not alone in the town square. Two people were walking towards the square from the direction of the inn.

The staff suddenly rose out of the boulder, glowing with a brilliant light. In that light, the two newcomers could not fail to have seen...

“Tanya!” they cried in unison, running toward her.

“Mommy!” Tanya cried back. “Daddy!”

Falcon ran forward to interpose himself between Tanya behind him and her parents in front of him. “Stay back!” he warned Yuri and Bella. “She is not as you remember her! Not yet!”

“Your love for the child is great,” the staff intoned, hovering over Tanya.

All three of them; Yuri, Bella, and Toby; nodded their heads.

“Will you trade your life to give life to the child?”

“Yes,” Yuri and Bella cried at once. “I will!” Falcon barely had enough strength to stop them from rushing forward.

In that same instant, Toby grunted in affirmation, seizing the staff and holding it as far away from Yuri and Bella as he could. He stared at them with a look that clearly said _Stay back,_ and held his other hand, palm forward, in a halting gesture to the grief-stricken parents. At last Yuri relented, pulling Bella back.

“Will you die willingly for the one you love?” the staff asked again.

Toby grunted in affirmation again, nodding emphatically.

“Toby, NO!” Tanya cried. But the staff was already working its magic on Toby, who crashed to the ground, dead.

The staff fell from his limp hand and hovered towards Tanya again. In its light, Falcon could see that the color had been restored to her face, and her teeth no longer seemed so sharp as before.

“So is the sacrifice complete. I am once again the Staff of Erana.” The staff stopped glowing and fell to the ground, where Falcon picked it up. With his other hand he took Tanya's hand; he felt the warmth in her palm and the pulse in her wrist, and he nodded to Yuri and Bella.

“I'm so sorry, Toby! I didn't protect you too good, did I?” the child cried as her parents gathered around her and embraced her with joyful tears. “I love you too, Toby.”

“You protected him as well as anyone could, Tanya,” Falcon said. “But there is no protecting anyone from their own choices. He chose your life, and the lives of your Mommy and Daddy, even though that choice demanded his own death.”

 _He will brave the battle boldly, even though he may not win._  
“And he faced his fate unflinching,” Falcon continued, “for he was a Paladin.”

Two meters away, the spirit of Piotyr smiled and nodded in agreement, a ghostly tear on his cheek.

_And they ask, “What is a Hero?” though the answer's evident:  
He's the one who faces death, knowing that his life's well spent._


End file.
